wine reviews & musings
Twelve Great Wines From Southern Italy Worth Splurging On - Wines from southern Italy have historically been overlooked in favor of the better-known and popular wine regions of northern Italy - mainly Tuscany, Piedmont and the Veneto. However, southern Italy has a rich winemaking heritage and is considered the birthplace of Italian wines. With its warm Mediterranean climate, rich volcanic soil and abundance of ancient native grape varieties, vineyards have dotted southern Italy’s landscape for thousands of years ...read full article»
Franciacorta Wines: Quality Italian Bubbly to Celebrate the New Year – or Any Time of Year - Italy offers discriminating wine lovers an astonishing array of super sparkling wines with which to celebrate the New Year or just to enjoy any time of year for that matter. One doesn’t need a special occasion to enjoy a festive sparkling wine. Any excuse will work like “it’s Saturday, let’s celebrate” or ...read full article»
Best Value Italian Wines of 2011: Ten Italian Wines under $20 - Here are the best value Italian wines of 2011, the wines that have the highest quality-to-price ratios of all those I’ve tasted in 2011. This list of my favorite value wines includes both red and white wines and should be a useful list for Italian wine cognescenti in this period of diminshed expectations...read full article»
Amaro - the Better Italian Bitter - The Italian liqueur, Amaro, is one of my favorite after dinner drinks. Ever since I was first served this liqueur after dinner at a restaurant in Bologna, I have been hooked on them, or at least most of them (more on this later). However, on those occasions when I have served them to guests, response to them has been what might charitably be described as mixed ...read full article»
Refosco - Northern Italy's Hidden Wine Gem - Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso is both the name of a grape as well as the red wine produced from that grape. Both the grape and the wine are popularly known as “Refosco” although technically it is only one sub-variety of the extended Refosco grape family. It is grown principally in the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region in northeast Italy and the nearby Venezia and Treviso provinces ...read full article»
Italy's Best Merlot Wines - Merlot is not a wine that readily comes to mind when discussing Italian wines. In a country populated with hundreds of different indigenous wine varieties and numerous attention-getting and popular wines such as Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello and Chianti Classico, to name a few, Italian Merlot doesn’t rise to the level of wide popular recognition. However, Merlot wines have increased in popularity in recent years with increased production of both blended wines as well as 100 percent Merlot wines....read full article»
Mirto and the Bounty of Sardinia - Whenever my friend Andrea schedules a return visit to his native Sardinia, I try to remember to ask him to bring back a bottle of Mirto for me and to give him some cash to cover the cost. It’s one of my favorite after-dinner drinks and since it’s difficult to find in the U.S. his courtesies in this regard are always appreciated. ...read full article»
Cheery Italian Sparkling Wine for Summer Festivities - a charming and refreshing but lesser known option in the Italian sparkling wine lineup is Brachetto d’Acqui. Like most other Italian sparkling wines, Brachetto d’Acqui (bra ket’ tah dahk’ qui) is produced in the cooler regions of northern Italy, in this case the Piedmont region in northwestern Italy. This seductive red sparkler is just waiting to be discovered by the American wine public. This delicately sparkling, light ruby-colored wine is characterized by pronounced red fruit aromas ...read full article»
Best Italian White Wines for Summer Sipping - when it comes to versatility, food-friendliness and outright summer sipping pleasure, it is hard to beat a white wine, especially one from Italy. People generally want to take a simpler approach to life during the hot months of summer. Formal dinners give way to simpler, buffet or even picnic-type get-togethers where formidable red wines would be out of place. Rather, these types of get-togethers call for crisp and refreshing white wines that can be served either by themselves for refreshing sipping, as aperitifs or as accompaniment to luncheons or other light summer fare ...read full article»
A Tasting of Red Wines from Sardinia - The island of Sardinia (Sardegna) lies off the west coast of central Italy. With its rugged mountains, rocky coasts and dazzling beaches accentuated by enigmatic pre-historic stone structures, Sardinia has long been a popular destination for Italian and other European tourists. However, Sardinia is not particularly well known to most Americans and not on the American travel industry's radar screens. For most Americans...read full article»
Top Ten Affordable Super-Tuscan Wines - The words “affordable” and “Super-Tuscan” don't often appear in the same sentence. Super-Tuscans are big, rich, intense and modern wines that often carry triple-digit price tags, especially acclaimed Super-Tuscans with bold-face names like Ornellaia, Messorio, Solaia, Tignanello or Sassicaia.
How did the term “Super-Tuscan” come into being and what exactly does it mean or signify? To answer this you have to...read full article»
Unexpected Pleasures - More Wines From Off the Beaten Track - In a previous posting on this website, I reviewed some noteworthy Italian wines that merit attention but are not particularly well known in this country. Italy is a complicated wine country with a rich and varied wine culture. Every one of Italy’s twenty regions grows grapes and produces wines and the country can lay claim to hundreds...read full article»
Top Italian Wine Values: Twelve Great Italian Red Wines Under $12 - Italy is a complicated wine country that produces a lot of wine each year, both red and white. Some of Italy’s wines are well known and highly-regarded by the international wine community. They also are frequently quite expensive. But a lot of Italian wine comes from less well-known varieties grown in regions other than Tuscany or the Piedmont that are generally less familiar to American consumers.
Listed below alphabetically by producer are twelve noteworthy red wines that generally retail for $12 or less. These are wines of some character and distinction at wallet-friendly prices. Even though I’ve listed a vintage year for each wine...read full article»
Tasting of Pre-release 2005 Barolo and 2006 Barbaresco Wines - I recently had the opportunity to taste some of importer Neil Empson’s fine line of Barolo and Barbaresco wines from the 2005 and 2006 vintages, respectively, which have not yet been released for sale. Empson imports wines from around the world but specializes in Italian wines. The company has a stable of remarkable, quality-oriented producers of Barbaresco and Barolo in its line-up that includes Einaudi, Marcarini, Poderi Colla Conterno Fantino, Ca’ Rome’ and Bongiovanni. Below are my notes on the wines tasted recently...read full article»
My Favorite Italian Red Wines of 2008 — I have had the pleasure of tasting a lot of wines, particularly Italian wines, over the course of the year 2008. While a few have been at best, uninteresting, most have been pretty good and some have been absolutely outstanding and whose tastes have lingered long after the bottles have been tucked away. In the spirit of the new year I want to share with you my top ten favorite Italian red wines for 2008. This obviously is no small task given the thousands of wines...read full article»
Wines to Drink While Watching the Election Returns — Rather than pairing the wines with food that might be appropriate, pair wines with the platforms and personalities of the candidates. This discerning article on what wines would pair well with the individual candidates for the nation’s highest political office should be of interest to those trying to decide what wines to serve on election night...read full article»
The Better Barbera — Barbera is the Rodney Dangerfield character of the wine world — that is, it gets no respect from the general wine-consuming public. Although widely available, Barbera wines are not especially well known in the U.S. and are often overlooked in favor of Italy’s more popular Nebbiolo - and Sangiovese-based red wines...read full article»
Sgroppino - A Refreshing Venetian Treat — I was first served this drink after dinner with my wife, Julie, and a few friends at a small, family-run restaurant on Campo San Margherita in Venice last year. Dinner was delightful and as we began tucking into our desserts, the waiter without any prompting, simply announced that he was going to serve us one of Venice’s most famous digestivi... read full article»
Unexpected Pleasures — Fine Italian Wines From Off the Beaten Track — Italy produces a dizzying array of wines. With grapes growing in virtually every nook and cranny of this boot-shaped country, Italy produces more wine than any other country in the world. Moreover, with its geographically diverse terrain... read full article»
Best Italian White Wines Under $20 — White wines in Italy are generally overshadowed by red wines. This is not difficult to understand given that Italy’s most internationally famous wines (i.e., Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello di Montalcino) are red... read full article»
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